Naked, angry, and bearded.

[AsimovWasRight]

Greetings Giant in the Playground!

I'm in a bit of a situation for the campaign i'm currently getting involved in (finally not the forever DM!). See, we have a new player who is a close friend of my group's. He's new to D&D, but not really tabletop games, and he was wanting to build a character based around the Warhammer Fantasy Dwarven Slayer.

So, you gentlefolks can see my problem. He's naked as far as armor goes :smalleek: I've been attempting to find things to suggest to him, that will keep his idea together, but will not result in him being a messy stain on the floor. But I could sure use any of your input!

Currently he's thinking of using a Barbarian and spending some feats on the TWF feat line

[VGLordR2]

He definitely wants to get the Lion Totem ACF. Also, how are his mental stats? A dip in Battledancer or Swordsage could boost his AC.

[Grail]

This is a problem with the 3.5 system for the most part, armour makes it harder to hit, rather than harder to hurt. So you can't really go with this kind of character as a martial character because yeah, it will just end up getting very messy.

You could always try to petition the DM to let him be a monk (refluffed) that uses weapons rather than unarmed strikes. Make the Ki stuff more akin to Slayer Grudges. Something like that could work I guess.

something like:
Change WP to Axes, Hammers, Daggers, Swords
Any Bonus Feat is a Fighter Bonus Feat.
Flurry of Blows is only with Axes or Hammers.
Unarmed Strike and every increment of damage allows taking of Favoured Enemy.
Ki Strikes are only with Axes or Hammers.
etc

[Dumbledore lives]

Fist of the Forest and Deepwarden mean Con to AC, so you can block attacks with your chest. They also work well for being angry, bearded just comes with the dwarf.

[Drelua]

You could try combining Barbarian, Fist of the Forest and Naked Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7661877&postcount=19), if you can use homebrew. It seems like a good way to get decent AC on an unarmoured character and some other interesting abilities.

[Xefas]

It sounds like you want a Swordsage focused on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It gets a bonus to AC in light or no armor, a bonus to initiative, and those maneuvers will allow you to leap and charge across the battlefield in a whirling typhoon of angry death. There's even a prestige class for Tiger Claw swordsages that gives you a Rage-type class feature, and great two-weapon-fighting stuff, if that's what you're in to (Bloodclaw Master, IIRC?).

[BobVosh]

Whenever I think naked and dwarven I immediately go to Fistbeard Beardfist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116838).

It is a special place to go to, but worthy of looking at.

[Lvl45DM!]

Just let him spend the money on magic tattoos that give the armour bonus that don't work if he has armour on.

[Aeryr]

Funnily atm I am working on a homebrewed character class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13449352&postcount=12) based in the dwarf slayers.

It is really similar to a barbarian, so he can go with it, for the AC I would suggest giving a bonus similar to the monk but using CON instead of dex.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

It sounds like you want a Swordsage focused on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It gets a bonus to AC in light or no armor, a bonus to initiative, and those maneuvers will allow you to leap and charge across the battlefield in a whirling typhoon of angry death. There's even a prestige class for Tiger Claw swordsages that gives you a Rage-type class feature, and great two-weapon-fighting stuff, if that's what you're in to (Bloodclaw Master, IIRC?).

Funny thing is, by RAW, Swordsage only gets its WIS to AC in Light Armor. No Armor, Medium Armor, and Heavy Armor = No WIS to AC.

I was also going to recommend Fistbeard Beardfist, and I'd also take a look at Runescarred Berserker (from Unapproachable East, I think) if you've got the Wisdom for it (at least I think it's WIS based). It gets some spellcasting, extra rage, natural armor, and DR (a meager amount of the latter two, but still, it's something). All in all, not a bad choice.

Edit: Also, you could have him consider a Monk/PsyWar with Tashalatora, and go King of Smack, if you'd rather go with Psionics than Divine (at least I think it was Divine) Magic.

[Xefas]

Funny thing is, by RAW, Swordsage only gets its WIS to AC in Light Armor. No Armor, Medium Armor, and Heavy Armor = No WIS to AC.

This was clarified by the WotC Customer Service as intending to be used both unarmored and with light armor. And, while it was going to be in the official errata document for the Tome of Battle, that document was (notoriously) broken, and never fixed. So, I guess it depends how much weight you give the word of the Wizards Customer Service people.

I believe all the pseudo-official customer service Tome of Battle errata is compiled here. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19525942/Tome_of_Battle_Q38;A?pg=1)

[KillianHawkeye]

There's always bracers of armor.

[Srasy]

Wild Dwarf
2 Fighter/3 Stone blessed (Goliath)/1 Barbarian
Good feat are Shocktrooper, Power Attack, Extra Rage, Knockback and Hammerfist,
Then later go into Deepwarden and Fist of Forest (With the boosted con because of the Size Increase) and Maybe take the DungeonCrasher ACF.

This build will allow you to run around all day naked then rage for a fight and clobber everything in your path

[Calimehter]

You might want to take a look at the class defence bonus system from UA. It would work great for your Trollslayer, but it might involve more changes in other places than you desire.

You could also always point out that true Trollslayers *want* to die in battle, which is why they don't wear armour, and that the game system is just modelling that desire for him. :smallwink:

[Arcane_Secrets]

Instead of trying to boost his AC, why not give him damage reduction and resistances that increases as he levels up? This way, he always gets hit but it just never actually kills him and doesn't really do much but make him angrier.

[Bard for Kicks]

3.5 system is flawed that "armour makes it harder to hit, rather than harder to hurt." but instead of trying to boost his AC (since it generally does not scale well in comparison to the attack bonus of monsters), here is an alternative:

Unearthed Arcana page 111 lists Armor as Damage Reduction. Sure, the DR isn't much compared to not being hit at all...but what are the chances that a barbarian is going to have +25 AC? I'd just take the DR since it also stacks with barbarian DR.

[AsimovWasRight]

Wow, I did not realize you guys were so quick with the replies! Though, I guess that's because I usually lurk.

There's far too many to directly quote, so i'll just reply to all of you. Thanks loads for the tips on this, i'll be sure to run them by the player and the DM. I was having a hard time suggesting ideas, as i'm much more of a caster-oriented person.

And, Srasy i'll be sure to suggest that to him :smallwink: